Making complex beats in PRV - any help?

I would think it's a case of the snap to settings.

A lot depends on your tempo.

A quarter note at 240bpm is fairly fast.

A 16th note at 60bpm might seem about as fast.

When I am drumming on my e drum kit and find I'm hitting 128th notes... I start suspecting that my choice of tempo is off by some factor.

best regards,
mike

Give the step sequencer another look. It's much more powerful than it first appears. I don't use it to its full capability - I just use it to whip out click tracks - but I've seen it used by an expert and was impressed with how much it can do.

Mattplaysguitar - thanks for that.

May i ask - Velocity variations are something my beats are missing out on. What's a good way to play around with them?

Dave

Great question!    I make electronic synth pop too!   I use a varied amount of synths for my drums, hats, etc...   but i keep them all in one drum map track.   I first make a basic rhythm  using only a sharp hi-hat sound.   This way I know my notes are placed correctly.   Then afterwords, I move the notes to different notes (which are mapped to different synths).... I use all sorts of strange sounds from various synths on each note in the drum map.   Not sure if this answers you or if I am even explaining it properly, BUT I do use PRV most of the time for sequencing.  However I feel I should get more into using some internal sequencers such as FM7, Arp2600, etc....   

Drum maps are great for when you are using several softsynths for your drumtracks. With dm's you can assign different notes to different synths and channels so you wont have to split your midi tracks up for every sound.

As people have mentioned the Cakewalk mfx are great as well, both for velocity and some slight humanisation with the Quantize tool.

Also you should check out Franks Midi Plug-Ins, they're really great and pretty cheap.

AdamLewis - yeah i have the same trouble - I'm at work at the moment so i can't view the video but i'll check it out later.

I find one of the biggest challenges whilst making tunes is to 'stop them sounding like dance tracks' - even though alot of the tempos/beat mechanics 'make me wanna dance'. My 'Go-to' synth is Rob Papen's 'Predator' which is amazing but very Dancey/Trancey. However, it's fun taking samples from it and using them contrary to how they were designed to be used i guess.

I love the drum sounds that Postal Service/Adam Young use - (as the easiest examples) ...really bright and 'upclose' in the mix but as you said, they're not EPIC. Even their kick drums sound more like a pop than a boom.

I find that Rowland Groovesynth has some pretty decent sounding drums for what i want.  Even the analogue kit in the TTS-1. All can be personalised with a tweak/effect here n there.

Will watch the video later on and comment again.
As for making my own drum sounds - i wouldn't have a clue.

Some of Ben Gibbard's drums sound, to me, like he had recorded the sound of water going down a plug hole and even the sound of him tapping a ring-pull on an empty can of Coke! I suppose if it matches the tempo - you could record anything for your drums.

I really dislike samplers such as beatscape.  They ruin the creativity aspect of song arranging.   I believe every note, beat, hi hat, etc... should all be "thought" up from scratch.   That is why I like PRV mode.   For instance I do a lot of 16th note fills (verse to chorus) type things... not always just an easy climb or fall... but some have ebb/flow to them which I would NEED to draw in...   (i can't play that fast)...    so how else can I do it BUT PRV mode?   Then once the notes are laid down, then you can go into your arps parameters and adjust the cutoffs, filters, etc... so that fill has some nice effects to it :)

-Adam